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A veil of secrecy has dropped around a series of immigration information-sharing agreements between Canada and its “Five Eyes” allies.

The United States border crossing in Lacolle, Que., south of Montreal. Canada and the U.S are part of a Five Eyes allies agreement to share information about people applying for asylum or a visa who has an illicit past.
(Ryan Remiorz / THE CANADIAN PRESS)

A spokesperson for Citizenship and Immigration Minister Chris Alexander said Thursday, “There is no multilateral five-country agreement (with the Five Eyes allies). All agreements are bilateral.” (Sean Kilpatrick / THE CANADIAN PRESS file photo)

The new Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSEC) complex is pictured in Ottawa in 2013. Ottawa won't disclose details of an information-sharing agreement among the Five Eyes allies.
(Sean Kilpatrick / THE CANADIAN PRESS)

OTTAWA—A veil of secrecy has dropped around a series of immigration information-sharing agreements between Canada and its “Five Eyes” allies.

In Washington this week, Francis Taylor, Under Secretary for Intelligence and Analysis, informed a congressional committee that “with the Five Country Conference — which includes Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom — we have concluded immigration information sharing agreements that reduce the likelihood that a person applying for asylum or a visa in any of the five countries who has an illicit past could hide that history.”

Testifying about the threat of foreign fighters and homegrown terror, Taylor said in addition to those agreements, Washington has built ties with other allies to improve its ability to detect terror threats or returning foreign fighters.

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The Five Eyes is a powerful intelligence alliance made up of the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand and Australia. Formed after the Second World War, these countries have agreed to share intelligence and collaborate on internet surveillance operations.

Ottawa, however, has not announced any deals other than efforts to iron out stronger information sharing with the U.S. through the Beyond the Border perimeter security agreement.

The Star requested further information Wednesday from Citizenship and Immigration Minister Chris Alexander and his department about the status and nature of those information-sharing agreements, but interview requests were denied.

Department spokesperson Nancy Caron said in an email: “There is no multilateral five-country agreement. All agreements are bilateral.” Neither Alexander’s office nor the department would respond to requests for clarification: “We cannot comment on any potential future arrangements at this time,” said Caron.

Caron said Canada has been acting under a protocol initiated in 2007 — and updated in 2009 to include New Zealand — to share up to 3,000 fingerprint records per year within the Five Country Conference for matching against the other countries’ immigration fingerprint holdings.

However, it was clear last year that Ottawa was making efforts to strike a broader immigration information-sharing deal with allies who are known loosely as the “Five Eyes” network, which shares intelligence and spy data.

In a February 2014 report, The Canadian Press revealed an internal memo prepared for Alexander. The memo said the government was working to build an information technology system that could be used for the systematic exchange of biometric data with Britain, Australia and New Zealand, rather than a manual case-by-case sharing.

The memo said Canada planned to quadruple its sharing of biometric information to 12,000 cases in the lead-up to full-scale information exchange with the U.S. by the fall of 2014.

It said while the new arrangement with the Americans was a priority, Canada was also creating a computerized system “that can be expanded to support systematic sharing” with other Five Country Conference members. In the meantime, Canada was updating arrangements with the other partners “to allow for greater manual immigration information sharing.”

Canada in 2012 had agreed under the “Beyond the Border” shared perimeter deal with the U.S. to share information on third-country nationals, permanent residents, visitors, foreign students and those who are here on work permits. The Star reported that deal was being expanded to allow sharing of information on each country’s citizens’ travel plans and biometric data.

It remains unclear whether Ottawa has indeed completed the computerized system to support broader sharing, or developed new agreements with the other Five Eyes allies. It is unclear whether officials reached the goal of quadrupling the data exchanges with the U.S. It is also not clear what privacy protocols govern the sharing of such data.

Carmen Cheung, senior counsel with the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, said in an interview the secrecy around such arrangements is a concern.

“Part of the challenge in all of the Five Eyes agreements is there is very little transparency and accountability and with any information-sharing arrangements with other governments — no matter how friendly and how allied they are — there’s always a concern about how that information is being used by the foreign government.”

Cheung noted that the Canada Border Services Agency still has no review or oversight body and remains accountable “only unto itself. It’s troubling in terms of security. It’s troubling in terms of human rights.”

“I think the danger with any sort of profiling is that it’s very easy to draw incorrect conclusions. One of the problems with branding somebody as a terrorist or as a terror suspect, it’s a very hard label to get out from under.”

The federal privacy commissioner’s office said Thursday it has raised concerns with the department about unauthorized use, disclosure of transfer of information that goes beyond Canada’s borders, both under the deal with the U.S. and the five-country information sharing initiative.

Anne-Marie Hayden, a spokeswoman for Privacy Commissioner Daniel Therrien, said the office has advised the department that “refugee claimants are a particularly vulnerable group and information sharing should continue to be done on a limited, case-by-case basis. Sharing of this sensitive information should be undertaken with caution and under strict safeguards and protocols.”

In an emailed reply to the Star’s queries, Caron, the immigration department spokesperson, said the sharing of information with the U.S. “is being done in accordance with each country’s privacy laws and policies.”

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